Top-performing organisations in the private and public sectors, on average, spend a greater proportion of their IT budgets on digital initiatives (33%) than government organisations (21%), according to a global survey of CIOs by Gartner, Inc.

Looking forward to 2018, top-performing organisations anticipated spending 43% of their IT budgets on digitalisation, compared with 28% for government CIOs.

Gartner’s 2017 CIO Agenda survey included the views of 2,598 CIOs from 93 countries, representing US$9.4 trillion in revenue or public sector budgets and $292 billion in IT spending, including 377 government CIOs in 38 countries.

Government respondents are segmented into national or federal, state or province (regional) and local jurisdictions, to identify trends specific to each tier. For the purposes of the survey, respondents were also categorised as top, typical and trailing performers in digitalisation.

>See also: The case for blowing this year’s IT budget

Rick Howard, research vice president at Gartner, said that 2016 proved to be a watershed year in which frustration with the status quo of government was widely expressed by citizens at the voting booth and in the streets, accompanied by low levels of confidence and trust about the performance of public institutions.

“This has to be addressed head on,” said Howard. “Government CIOs in 2017 have an urgent obligation to look beyond their own organisations and benchmark themselves against top-performing peers within the public sector and from other service industries. They must commit to pursuing actions that result in immediate and measurable improvements that citizens recognise and appreciate.”

Top performers secure greater budget increases

Government CIOs as a group anticipated a 1.4% average increase in their IT budgets, compared with an average 2.2% increase across all industries. Local government CIOs fare better, averaging 3.5% growth, which is still more than 1% less on average than IT budget growth among top-performing organisations overall (4.6%).

>See also: 21% of tech investments now take place outside IT budget – Gartner

The data is directionally consistent with Gartner’s benchmark analytics, which indicate that average IT spending for state and local governments in 2016 represented 4% of operating expenses, up from 3.6% in 2015. For national and international government organisations, average IT spending as a percentage of operating expenses in 2016 was 9.4%, up from 8.6% in 2015.

“Whatever the financial outlook may be, government CIOs who aspire to join the group of top performers must justify growth in the IT budget by clearly connecting all investments to lowering the business costs of government and improving the performance of government programmes,” Howard said.

Top technology investment priorities in government

Looking beyond 2017, Gartner asked respondents to identify technologies with the most potential to change their organisations over the next five years.

Advanced analytics takes the top spot across all levels of government (79%). Digital security remains a critical investment for all levels of government (57%), particularly in defence and intelligence (74%).

>See also: Financial services sector IT spending

The Internet of Things will clearly drive transformative change for local governments (68%), whereas interest in business algorithms is highest among national governments (41%).

All levels of government presently see less opportunity in machine learning or blockchain than top performers do. Local governments are slightly more bullish than the rest of government and top performers when it comes to autonomous vehicles (9%) and smart robots (6%).

Biggest barriers for government CIOs

The top three barriers that government CIOs report they must overcome to achieve their objectives are skills or resources (26%), funding or budgets (19%), and culture or structure of the organisation (12%).

Drilling down into the areas in which workforce skills are lacking, the government sector is vulnerable in the domain of data analytics (30%), which includes information, analytics, data science and business intelligence. Security and risk is ranked second for government overall (23%).

>See also: Worldwide IT spending forecast to grow in 2017 – Gartner

“Bridge the skills gap by extending your networks of experts outside the agency,” Howard said. “Compared with CIOs in other industries, government CIOs tend not to partner with startups and midsize companies, missing out on new ideas, skills and technologies.”

Seize the digital ecosystem opportunity

The concept of a digital ecosystem is not new to government CIOs. Government organisations participate in digital ecosystems at rates higher than other industries, but they do so as a matter of necessity and without planned design, according to Gartner.

Overall, 58% of government CIOs report that they participate in digital ecosystems, compared with 49% across all industries.

As digitalisation gains momentum across all industries, the need for government to join digital ecosystems — interdependent, scalable networks of enterprises, people and things — also increases. “The digital ecosystem becomes the means by which government can truly become more effective and efficient in the delivery of public services,” Howard concluded.